


Simple Choices

by baku_midnight



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Drama, Established Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, Insecurity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Slash, Swearing, soul marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2018-11-16 00:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11242461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baku_midnight/pseuds/baku_midnight
Summary: A collection of my shorter fics from tumblr, each less than 1000 words. Some drama, some laughs, some sadness, all about Daryl and Jesus and their relationship.





	1. "Like" Liking someone

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at bakudrawssometimes @ tumblr. I write, draw (sometimes) and reblog Daryl x Jesus stuff.

A prolonged silence is good for any relationship, Rick thinks to himself as he and Daryl sit perched on the steps of the big house at Alexandria, resting off a day’s hard work. Daryl smokes while Rick gulps water, the sunless sky sweltering with late autumn heat. They’ve been seated a good ten minutes without sharing a word, watching as the party for Hilltop readies itself to depart, Maggie leaning back to support her growing belly, flanked by her growing posse of loyal followers.

“How’d you know?” Daryl asks suddenly, and Rick pauses mid-sip. He’s gotten pretty good at deciphering Daryl’s, er, concise way of speaking, but even he will need a little more than that. He waits.

“’Bout Michonne?”

Ah, that. Rick scrubs at the back of his neck, looking between his boots. “I uh…”

He can talk about this stuff with his kids, sure, because you give up any sort of dignity or shyness when you’ve got kids to teach about the birds and the bees. And giving sappy speeches about feelings? Sure, he’s practically got it down to a science, now. But talking it out with a guy friend still falls into the territory of awkwardly clearing his throat and saying the word “buddy” a lot.

Daryl clearly isn’t in the mood for awkwardness, if his “getting down to business” posture says anything about it. He’s staring straight ahead through the meandering smoke of his cigarette, unflinching.

“I don’t know when it started. I guess it wasn’t really even a possibility until I knew she felt something, too,” Rick explains, scratching at his sunburned forearm. “She’d always be family, I knew that. But until I _knew_ , I guess I thought that would be enough.”

Daryl’s jaw tenses as he pulls the cigarette away with an anxious puff. “How’d y’know you felt somethin’?”

Rick tilts back his head. He’s never thought about putting it into words. It’s not something he and Michonne had ever even discussed. The awkwardness of adolescent love was long gone from either of their lives: it was just about deciding to be together, to be as one.

“I guess, lookin’ forward to seein’ her first thing when I woke up, seein’ her smile,” Rick muses. Images and sounds come to the forefront of his mind and soon there’s nothing but that one, radiant woman filling up his entire mind’s eye. “Wantin’ to spend all my time with her, seein’ her first in a crowd…”

“Thinkin’ ’bout him even when he ain’t around,” Daryl pipes, and Rick’s mouth snaps shut.

Oh. Uh…

Daryl’s face is darkened by his bangs that lay heavy over his eyes, hiding his embarrassment. For a moment Rick doesn’t know whether his best friend just accidentally outed himself or if this is his way of confiding, but the way he’s not running away to sulk in the woods says he probably knew what he was saying. And _meant to_ say it. Which means, well, uh…

Rick traces where Daryl’s looking, where he’s _been_ looking for the last twenty minutes, and finally notices Jesus next to Maggie, smiling and chatting and looking his typically saintly self, sun glowing in his hair, cheeks cherubic, the whole deal. He also notices Daryl’s hands shaking something awful.

“Yeah, uh, definitely that,” Rick mumbles, clearing his throat and narrowly avoiding adding “buddy” to the end of his sentence, “there were a lot of things, I guess, but when I knew, I _knew_.”

Daryl nods as he smudges out his cigarette on the porch. He hefts his crossbow onto one shoulder and his pack onto the other.

“Alright. Best be goin’. See you in a few weeks?” Daryl mutters, getting swiftly to his feet, now that the party to Hilltop appears finally ready to leave.

“Uh, right,” Rick nods, putting out his hand for Daryl to shake before he goes. As he turns and walks across the street, Rick takes careful notice of whom he beelines to. Rick reddens in a way that has nothing to do the heat as he watches Jesus sparkle up at Daryl, smile practically glowing. Daryl says something obviously simple and gruff but apparently it’s the most endearing thing in the world, for how Jesus is looking at him like he hung the stars in the sky.

Rick has a feeling he may’ve bared his soul for nothing, because Daryl _knew_ all along.


	2. Big Brother's Arms

There were only two times in Daryl’s life that his brother hugged him. Really hugged him—not just an arm around his shoulders, meant to bend and control, but a real, genuine hug. The first time was when he nearly died and the second was when he accidentally came out.

When he was ten, he was ATV-ing in the back woods when he hit a stump and fell down a ravine, the vehicle landing on top of him. He managed to crawl out of the wreck with only a few scrapes, bruised from neck to knee, and sobbing so hard he was practically hyperventilating. A 21-year-old Merle was down over the hill in seconds, tearing the knees out of his jeans as he skidded down, and once he finished yelling his lungs out at Daryl for being such a _god-damn clumsy screw-up_ , he pulled his little brother into a hug. Daryl trembled and sobbed for a good ten minutes, and Merle held him, crouched in the dirt with Daryl crying into his neck. He put a big hand around the back of his head and pressed Daryl firmly against his shoulder, ignoring the tears and drool soaking his shirt.

For a long time after that, physical touch was limited to the occasional pat on the shoulder or reckless shove. For Merle, a thinker rather than a feeler, touch was not a necessity; it was a gimmick, another way to lead people along, to control. But Daryl craved it, absorbed it like a sponge on the rare occasions he received it.

When Daryl was 24, Merle found out the secret he’d been keeping. It was probably the way he kept looking at the gorgeous stranger in the bar who had the radiant smile and the long hair draped over his ears that gave it away. Or it coulda been the dog-eared men’s fitness magazine Daryl had shoved under his mattress in his room. It was such a tiny clue, but it was really all it took with Merle’s hypervigilance in their dangerously homogeneous community. Then, all it took was just asking him, and Daryl was open like a book. He couldn’t hide a thing, not from the man who knew him best.

Of course, Merle yelled at him. Screamed and called him names because that’s all he knew how to do, that’s all the men who raised him had ever taught him _to_ do.

“You keep your _goddamn head down_ , you hear me? Dumb sonofabitch,” Merle gritted out, eyes wide with rage. He rammed a finger hard into Daryl’s chest, pushed him back with a shove to his shoulder. “You don’t tell no one about this. Don’t look at no one funny, don’t say nothin’—you listenin’ to me, boy?!”

Daryl tried to maintain his usual stoicism, the one that had carried him through all of puberty and surrounded him like a shell. “I’m listenin’,” he puffed, lip wobbling, fists trembling at his sides, and soon, he was crying again, just like he had when he was ten.

Merle cooled, slowly and then all at once, expression turning from horrified to something a little more vague. Carefully, like dusting off muscles he hadn’t used in a long time, ones he wasn’t allowed to use or even let see the light of day, he reached out and pulled Daryl into his arms.

Daryl curled into him immediately, dropping his head against his brother’s sturdy frame. In the decade that had passed, he’d reached his big brother’s height, but he ducked into the embrace, making himself small.

A meek little sound bubbled from his shoulder and Merle cocked an eyebrow, as Daryl mumbled, “’m sorry.”

“’M sorry,” Daryl whispered, unable to resist the tears that rolled down his nose, “’m sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Merle answered in a low voice, slipping a hand around Daryl’s head, cradling him gently. “No sense cryin’ ’bout somethin’ you can’t fix.”

Despite nodding along to the advice, Daryl continued to cry for a long while, the occasional hitch in breath coming out of him. Merle stood still, hands firm and heavy on Daryl’s back. He finally separated himself from Daryl when the sobs subsided and he could hold him by the shoulders and look him in the eye.

“Listen to me—you don’t tell no one about this, ’specially not our pa,” a shudder ran through him as he said the moniker. “This ain’t happenin’, you got it?” At the time, Merle probably thought it was just a phase or a fad Daryl would outgrow, just like he outgrew his socks and playin’ Cowboys and Indians. Or at least, that’s what he desperately hoped. It would just make things a lot easier for Daryl, and, by extension Merle as well, because everything that was Daryl’s was his brother’s, both the good and the bad.

It seemed a shame now that the last time his brother hugged him was under such dramatic circumstances, things that didn’t seem nearly as important now, in the Next World, that didn’t care about things like that, and where he was, curled up on the couch with the man he loved. Jesus let Daryl run his fingers through his hair and in return he stroked the back of Daryl’s hand. Part of Daryl wondered what his brother would think of him now, and if he would hug him again if he knew how far he’d come.


	3. Forehead Kiss

Something about impending doom loosens people’s tongues, it seems. They have two hours before they’re supposed to regroup with the Kingdom’s forces on the highway and take the fight to Sanctuary, and suddenly everyone seems to be breaking down with teary-eyed confessions to suit the miserable weather and the dark mood it brings.

Times like this, Daryl prefers to keep his head down, go inside his thoughts. Voices usually fill his head, usually his brother’s, but sometimes it’s Rick’s, telling him to keep calm, keep his head down and eyes forward. The people of Hilltop apparently have different ways of coping, however. He’s spotted people crying and hugging and commiserating in pairs all over the settlement, ducked in under eaves to avoid the rain, and he’s just grateful he hadn’t gotten caught up in that melodramatic business.

Until Jesus goes and says something goddamn stupid.

The downpour is turning biblical when Daryl stomps out into the slick road of the marketplace.

He paces back and forth on the mulch, throwing his hands into it and fuming because this is just _not_ how things go. People don’t…do that…with him. It doesn’t happen like that. Not only was it a stupid thing to say, it was also _nonsense_. He spots Jesus standing out on the steps of the trailer, rain landing in his silken hair, bouncing off of his upturned nose. His posture is calm, _beautifully_ calm, eyes crystal clear, somehow, despite what he just said, and what they’re about to face.

“How long?” Daryl nearly shouts over the storm. He can’t make himself go any closer.

“Honestly, Daryl, I’ve known since almost the moment I met you,” Jesus calls back. His brow is furrowed and sad. This isn’t something that’s supposed to make him sad, right? Just another thing to drive Daryl’s blood pressure up and up.

“You have…” Daryl breathes, words dying before they make it out of his clenching throat. It feels dry inside even as the rain slithers and soaks down his neck and back. “You got feelings for me?”

“Yes,” Jesus calls back, feet seemingly glued to the steps. Daryl glances over a few times, stabbing looks that can’t last more than a split second, and sees his face is red and brow furrowed. He looks sad. Daryl doesn’t like that at all. Water is leaking down his face as the rain flattens down his hair.

“You ever gonna tell me?” Daryl barks, voice cracking. His shoulders are squared for a fight. Force of habit. He remembers dad yelling at him, callin’ him names, _no son of mine gonna be no goddamn pussy_ , Merle pulling him out of the room by his arm, tellin’ him _don’t say a word_ —

“I was leaning on ‘no’ until a little while ago,” Jesus says, pulling his hands in front of him, pressing into the back of his hand with his thumb so hard it’ll leave a red spot. “I was scared. I wasn’t ready for the possibility that this didn’t go both ways.”

Daryl stares at the ground. His vision is nothing but white. This isn’t right. It’s scary, of course it is, because it isn’t possible. Sweet guys with big hearts and pretty faces aren’t supposed to…have feelings for him. They’re supposed to stay far the fuck away, only to be seen through windows and TV screens and fences. His muscles feel tense all at once, like he’s trying to come out of his skin like a snake. His head hurts, too, like someone’s knockin’ on it. He remembers dad crackin’ things against the wall, hollering and smashing and Merle trying to talk over the sound, _keep your head down, little brother, no matter_ _what_ —

“Are you gonna say something?” Jesus asks, desperation clouding his voice. His demeanor is no longer crisp, no longer crystal clear; he’s desperate, looking as broken up as Daryl feels.

“Naw,” Daryl mumbles, ‘cause it’s all bullshit. It’s bullshit. It doesn’t happen like this. Not to him. He turns to go down the slope of the marketplace. He’ll leave. He has to. Jesus calls his name, once, his heart in the sound that Daryl ignores.

He’s running off before he even knows where his legs are taking him, but he ends up in the barn, slamming his fists into the wall. He doesn’t notice anything anymore, not the teary-eyed goodbyes taking place all around him, the men shuffling up and down the hill carrying implements of war, the children running around in circles like they’re lost in their own home. Can’t see anything but watery green eyes.

He thinks about leaving now, but his feet are stapled to the floor. He remembers why he stayed; it’s because he needed to protect Maggie and her baby, needed to take some goddamn responsibility back that’d been stripped it from him, after going so long like a child who couldn’t make decisions for himself. But he also remembers why he came back in the first place. It’s because Jesus was there, and if he was there, it was safe. Jesus who brought him in with open arms when what made him was practically _leaking_ out, blood and piss and fury unchecked—made him welcome without question.

Why’d it have to happen right now? It’s broken him up and he knows he won’t be able to think about anything else in the upcoming fight. And worse, deep, deep down, past his daddy’s yelling, past Merle’s thick arms wrapping him up tight, behind a wall, shattered and full of holes, tacked-up with tape and nails, that surrounds him like a cage, he knows why he’s broken up at all.

He turns back towards the trailer, his body moving on its own. Tracing the steps his own boots made. _Don’t be a pussy_ , his mind is screaming at him. _Keep your goddamn head down. Eyes forward._ He sees Jesus is gone from the step and goes inside, the screen door slapping open against the wall when he pushes it aside. Jesus is there, leaning over a counter, shoulders rounded and hair falling over in front of his shoulders. He turns when he hears Daryl’s footsteps, staring up at him with massive green eyes.

“Daryl, listen—” he starts, but Daryl doesn’t let whatever he’s going to say leave his mouth, taking two long strides and landing before him, closing the gap by pushing his forehead against Jesus’s. He has to hunch his shoulders with their difference in height but he leans into the movement, making it heavy, real.

Jesus smells like wet hair and Daryl commits everything to memory, the smell of him, the look, the sound of his hitching exhale. Their eyes don’t close, and Jesus is looking at somewhere on Daryl’s chest while Daryl looks down at his nose, watching the way his lashes flicker and his mouth opens and closes like he can’t figure out what to say.

Breathing hard Daryl finally breaks the connection, turning his head to nudge Jesus’s nose with his own before pulling away, the soft heat of Jesus’s breath staying on his lips.

“Come back alive,” Jesus says, as Daryl’s already backing out of the room, hefting last-minute supplies as he goes, willing the tremble out of his hands. He grunts his acknowledgement.

“You, too,” he mumbles, and Jesus nods.


	4. Saying Goodbye

It happens so quickly: one moment, the road is clear, and the next, a clutch of Saviours are bearing down on them like a hurricane sweeping towards the shore. Gunshots and people swearing filter through the dust kicked off of the road, the whistling through the trees which flank either side of the highway. Jesus’s heart slams into overdrive as he spins around, trying to get a clear view. Dante and Eduardo are making progress, pursuing the attackers into the dust cloud, and behind him Tara is shouting as she deftly takes down walkers with clean shots between the eyes. Jesus cuts through the dust, working his way over to Daryl, who lets off a few shots with his rifle before letting out a grunt of pain and crumpling over his knee.

Time stops as Jesus spots the splash of blood on the pavement, and Daryl, caught off guard by the injury, is immediately pulled down by walkers. There’re only two, but they’re strong and undaunted enough to overpower Daryl, who disappears beneath their grasping, skinless limbs.

Jesus springs forward, but he’s not fast enough, tripping over himself and swearing in his head _oh God come on let me get to him_ , watching a bullet blast through the head of one walker and slamming his knife into the skull of the second. Daryl is able to get upright; there’s blood on his hands and legs but he seems cognizant, though he lets out an agonized sob when he bends his leg to sit up on the asphalt.

Eduardo and Tara gather to surround the two of them, guns raised, and Jesus doesn’t even ask if it’s a bite before frantically ripping and pulling back Daryl’s pant leg to reveal the wound. It’s a gunshot, a through-and-through, and he’s bleeding a lot.

“Fuck, fuck…” someone is swearing, Jesus thinks it’s Daryl or it might be himself. He plants his gloved hands over the wound to apply pressure, spinning around and grabbing for something, anything, until he finds a cloth in his hand. It’s an extra shirt, he realizes, and he doesn’t know who gave it to him but he quickly replaces his hand with it, tying it tight around Daryl’s leg, just under the knee, staunching the seeping blood.

“We gotta…gotta…” Jesus mutters, reaching for Daryl’s hands to try and support him up. Daryl lets out a groan as he straightens his leg again, panting and whining through the pain but standing just the same. He can stand. Jesus thanks whoever’s listening for the small mercy—but gunshots still ring out around them, popping through the bark of trees and ricocheting off of the asphalt. They haven’t run into Saviours like this—ones who shoot first and antagonize later—but ever since the last battle drew Negan out, the entire faction has been a powder keg, ignorant, terrified, and worst of all, over-armed.

“We gotta get you back to Hilltop, come on, it’s not far—” Jesus mumbles, reaching out to touch Daryl’s arm, only to have it pushed away.

“No!” Daryl yelps, pain evident on his reddening face. At least it’s not turning white, Jesus thinks with growing horror, as the image of Daryl reanimating and lunging at him makes his stomach turn. “Lemme go. I’ll lead ’em off.”

Eduardo and Tara hear the comment—it’s hard to miss it with the determined way Daryl shouts it, his voice cracking over the chaos around them. They both shoot Jesus anxious looks that he returns, at a loss. His mind can’t even comprehend what Daryl said, white noise filling in between his ears as the surrounding gunshots pound in his head.

“No, no, Daryl,” Jesus moans, “don’t. You can’t—” Tears spring to his eyes. This can’t be. This can’t be it.

“Get me on one’a their bikes,” Daryl shouts, pointing at an overturned motorcycle. Eduardo and Dante rush forward to upright it, setting down the kickstand and then returning to sentry. Daryl stumbles over to it and Jesus grabs him, supporting him as he swings his uninjured leg over and digs into the pedal. He lets out a cry of pain that he tries to bite down as he lifts himself up on his bleeding leg, stifling a whimper. He slings his rifle onto his back and stares at Jesus.

Jesus’s eyes are wide, his mouth slack and blood pounding in his ears. The voices crying _no please no not now_ quiet and there’s nothing but silence and cold. Daryl’s dagger-sharp expression is grim, but his gaze doesn’t waver from Jesus’s.

“Listen, I’m—” Daryl begins, voice dragging out of him like it weighs a ton.

“Don’t,” Jesus protests, “can’t—”

“Listen!” Daryl shouts as gunfire sparks up anew in the distance. His eyes are vibrant through the smoke and dust and they narrow into a desperate glare. “I ain’t never got to say goodbye! Not to Beth, Glenn, my brother, none’a them! So let me say it!”

Jesus’s eyes feel hot as he leans closer, puts his arms around Daryl’s neck, rests one hand on his shoulder, the other cupping his head, sifting through thin, sweaty locks.

Daryl blinks at him a moment, lips twisted in a melancholy frown, eyes dark. He licks his lips like he wants to say something important but words just don’t work. He opens his lips.

“Goodbye.”

Jesus breaks down sobbing. He squeezes his hand in Daryl’s hair, knowing he’s pulling tight enough to hurt but _everything_ in his body hurts at once.

“Hey,” Daryl whispers, trying to get Jesus to look at him again. Agonizingly he looks up, catches Daryl’s gaze, and sees it the kindest and most vulnerable it’s ever been.

“Goodbye, Daryl,” he mutters back, leaning in to nuzzle Daryl’s nose with his own. Their foreheads come together, Daryl’s face still twisted in pain as he leans nearer, turns his jaw to place a kiss on Jesus’s lips. It’s quick, just a _see you later, be back soon_ kiss, and for a moment Jesus can actually imagine that’s all it is before Daryl pulls away and the sound of battle comes back.

“Drop your stuff on the side of the road, make it look like y’all ran away,” Daryl calls out, and the group immediately complies, tossing bags and spent firearms on the pavement, “hide there in the bushes—” he points to a patch of brush in a ditch—“and come back out once I led them off.”

Adrenaline carries Jesus off of the road, and he, Tara, Eduardo and Dante skid into the bushes, throwing themselves low to the ground and listening through the ash cloud as Daryl’s bike revs up, the engine so loud it sends a shooting pain through Jesus’s head. He can’t see straight. Daryl’s last, ringing, “this way, motherfuckers!” echoes out and then fades as he speeds away. More motorcycles spring to life soon after, and a truck engine joins them before they fade off too, the shouts of angry young men following, along with the tired groans of a few interested man-eaters.

It seems like only seconds that they wait in the brush before emerging again, though Jesus’s wrists have fallen asleep beneath him. The walk back to Hilltop seems to go just as quickly, as he makes it in sort of a half-conscious daze, eyes red and itchy and ears ringing. They report what happened to Maggie who takes the news with a grim look and then gets back to her work.

The trailer seems emptier than ever, Jesus realizes as he steps into it alone for the first time in months. For a while it housed five, and now it’s only one again. He should be out working, planning for their next assault, but he can’t even think. Can’t move. It happened so quickly. He can only see Daryl falling beneath a pair of grasping biters, looking him in the eye, then disappearing down the highway.

 

 

The night is one of the longest Jesus has experienced, though he sleeps soundly, like a child who’s sobbed himself to sleep. He’s so tired he can’t even lift his head when a light flickers on out on his porch, like someone’s come to check on him.

He does, however, find the strength to move when he hears the faint hum of a motorcycle’s engine in the distance.


	5. Soul Tattoos

Daryl never put much stock into the whole “soul tattoos” thing. Some people swore that they led to true love, but he’d also met enough love-obsessed losers who were so convinced that a few inches of indelible ink was enough to base a relationship on that they wasted their whole lives trying to decode the weird little marks. His brother, and only frame of reference, for example, had one on his shoulder of a woman’s shoe—and after going through three girlfriends with foot fetishes, he basically gave up and tattooed over the thing with something a little more personalised and a lot more crude.

Daryl, on the other hand, had a sprawling bit of text beneath his collarbone and spreading onto his chest that read: “come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

“That’s a bible quote, you know,” Merle said when he saw it, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin, “whaddya know—your true love is the good lord himself!”

Daryl scoffed, trying to look down at the markings on his pec through his open shirt, turning his head this way and that.

“That’s mighty sweet of ya, real pious,” Merle teased, “didn’t know you were such a believer.”

The elder brother broke into raucous laughter as Daryl shoved him hard, sending them both falling sideways into the dirt.

Daryl didn’t think about the tattoos much after his own first appeared when he turned 16. They provided, at best, some sort of guidance and hope for the particularly superstitious, and at worst, some cryptic message to obsess over while you wasted your life trying to figure out to whom the symbol referred. Daryl knew for a fact that Rick’s tattoo of a two sparrows taking flight had nothing to do with either Lori or Michonne, as far as he could reckon. Carol confided in him once that the fact that hers was a fawn and her husband hunted deer should’ve tipped her off early on. Glenn’s was a horseshoe and Maggie’s was an infinity symbol—she was still trying to puzzle that one out last he’d checked. But really, they didn’t mean anything unless you _made_ them mean something. And mostly they were too abstract and random to be anything other than glorified birthmarks.

…Which is what he thought, up until he saw Jesus’s.

“Kinda vague, right?” Jesus mumbled, standing sheepishly in the door of the trailer, a half-unbuttoned shirt hanging loosely off of his shoulders, sleeves draping themselves lazily over his hands. On his left pec, just over his heart, was a stylized capital “D.”

“I mean, it kinda drove me crazy for a bit,” he mumbled, scratching his arm, “but it seemed fittingly laconic, don’t you think? You know. Being a man of few words, like you are.”

Daryl stood at an angle to Jesus, hackles raised. He wasn’t really listening to what he was being told, just staring at the little mark on Jesus’s chest instead. There had to be some kind of mistake. Maybe it was a capital “O” or zero instead. But the longer he looked, the more it seemed to be a letter. The same letter that began both of his names.

“People made fun of me so much,” Jesus mused, reaching up to comb a hand distractedly through his hair. He was rambling, like he did when no one else was talking and he felt the need to fill the space. “But once I figured it out, it was…kind of a load off, you know?”

Daryl grunted something out of sheer frustration and Jesus’s mouth immediately closed. Daryl stared at the floor between them.

“So you said all them things…because of some tattoo?” Daryl asked, incredulous.

“Of course not,” Jesus answered, raising his hand, “I knew I liked you long before I even thought about the soul-mark. I’m…in pretty deep at this point, Daryl.” He laughed, a nervous, cracked little thing, and Daryl just felt more awkward.

It didn’t help that he was a mess, both inside and out. Dusted with dirt, clothes crinkled with blood and exhausted from a long two days’ trip, he didn’t expect to come back to see Jesus in the middle of changing and showing off the mark on his chest to the whole world. And seeing it, right away, Daryl knew…something. It tipped him off, the way finding a footprint in the woods when he was tracking led him to his prey.

“Can I see yours?” Jesus asked, gesturing at Daryl’s chest as if writing in the air. Daryl shrugged, starting to undo his buttons. He stopped when the text was clear, watching Jesus’s eyes trace it as he read.

“I’m guessing it’s a bible quote?” mumbled Jesus, and Daryl grunted out an affirmative. “Did uh…you-know-who say it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh.” Jesus nodded, appearing to be in thought. “Look, you don’t need to worry about it. You don’t even need to give me an answer. I meant what I said, though, so—” Suddenly, huge blue eyes widened even more and Jesus started walking forward. “Your arm—! Is it okay?”

Daryl peered down at his forearm, seeing a big red gash rising up the back, caked with old blood. He never even noticed the wound—he rarely did when adrenaline was pumping, but now that he saw it, it did look pretty bad.

“What happened?” Jesus stepped into his space without fear, taking his arm gently by the wrist and lifting it for a better look. He stroked a narrow finger along the cut, touch feather-light.

“Musta got it when I climbed over the fence,” Daryl mused, but Jesus was now looking him over for other wounds. Daryl thought about being embarrassed, but what was the point? Jesus had seen him at his lowest, living caged like a beast, covered in his own filth, barely in control of his faculties. Jesus had cleaned him up in the most unobtrusive way, gently pulling him from his borrowed, ill-fitting clothes and leading him to the shower. He had been so sweet—but that didn’t begin to cover it. He was just so…present, fully engaged and always there, providing shelter and rest when Daryl needed it most.

“You should wash it out,” Jesus muttered, “I’ll get the shower started. I don’t think you’ll get an infection, but—” he stopped as Daryl deftly dipped down and touched his lips to Jesus’s cheek, providing the most soft, subtle kiss, that ended as quickly as it began.

Jesus’s mouth gaped open, and he stared at somewhere on Daryl’s chest, too shocked to do much.

Daryl reached up and touched his lips. Maybe that was a little too rash. But it felt like he had been waiting to do that for a while, and was just waiting for a sign that’d finally came: or, several signs, in succession, that’d been coming for weeks. _Rest for the weary_. How many people had the initials “D. D.”, anyway?

“Everything you dreamed it’d be?” Daryl huffed, biting nervously at his thumb, half-expecting criticism even though he’d never received it from the man before him. Jesus’s face broke into a smile.

“Yes, yes it was,” Jesus answered, touching a finger to the corner of his mouth as if to check that the lingering touch was real.

“Ain’t gonna be all lovey-dovey now,” Daryl wagged his finger, starting to carefully pull his shirt over his wound, “not just because you got my signature up on your chest.”

“Of course.” Jesus shook his head, but a tiny smirk was still on his face.


	6. Chatty Chickadee

Daryl’s reluctance to take pain medication after he ended up with not one, but  _two_  of the Saviours’ bolts embedded in his side wasn’t out of some sense of manly restraint—although that was a part of it—but out of knowing what strange and exaggerated things pain meds  _did_  to him. He remembered getting his appendix out at 13 and afterwards being so out of it, he could barely tell the sky was up and the grass was down. He apparently asked the nurse to be his mom and told her several times that he liked cowboys and wanted to be one when he grew up. When the drugs wore off, Merle had been more than happy to inform him that the whole loose-lipped experience was in fact real and not just some horrible dream.

The second time, when he was 21 and in a motorcycle accident, he was quick to inform everyone in the vicinity what his brother was hiding the in the back seat of his truck. Merle was less amused by that one, but fortunately for them, the paramedics decided to stay impartial and just focused on digging gravel and bits of denim out of Daryl’s palms and knees. Maybe it had something to do with being so expressively pent-up the other 99% of his life, but being on pain meds made Daryl chattier than a chickadee.

This side-effect was unknown to Doc Carson, who thought it was Daryl’s usual over-active stoicism making him protest so much, and practically poured morphine down his throat. The drug worked immediately to dull Daryl’s pain so he could lie still enough for Carson to perform the surgery, and the confusion, light-headedness and talkativeness came on soon after the implements were removed and the doctor was putting in stitches.

Daryl expected a sense of dread and anxiety following taking the medication, but instead he felt—good. Like, nothing could touch him, everything was right and he could say whatever he wanted because this wasn’t even the real world, anyway. His mind convinced him he had passed over into some sort of fantasy, further expounded as the most beautiful angel he’d ever seen walked into the room.

“Hey, how’s everything going?” Jesus asked as he came into the medical trailer, pulling off his beanie and letting slightly fluffy hair loose. Carson gave him a brief nod over his shoulder while continuing to sew up Daryl’s side. There were cut-up and bloody clothes all around his reclined body that Daryl vaguely suspected were his, but maybe they had been there since before he came. Jesus stood a short distance from the opposite side of the bed, which was a damn nuisance, because Daryl wanted him right there next to him, right now.

“You’re hot,” Daryl announced, and both the doctor and Jesus snapped up to look at him.

“What?” Jesus asked, looking briefly at his own body and patting it down, wondering if there was something on him he’d missed. The usual splatters of walker blood and dust covered his coat, but to Daryl, that just added to the appeal.

“I said you’re damn hot,” Daryl repeated, voice skipping a few decibels higher than he expected it to go, “fuckin’ gorgeous.”

Jesus let out a bit of an exasperated puff and shook his head. “Daryl, do you even know who I am?”

“Yeah,” Daryl slurred, “I know who you are.”

Jesus rolled his eyes and sat down on the side of the bed opposite Carson, pulling off his gloves and shrugging out of his coat. Daryl watched him with rapt—if slightly slow—attentiveness, eyes tracing his face, neck, arms, taking in every detail, and noticing the way Jesus was blushing like a peach.

“How come you’re single, huh? Why’s no one picked you up yet?” Daryl mumbled, and Jesus shook his head as he folded his clothes and put them aside. He started to carefully pull at the shredded clothes scattered around Daryl’s body.

“What’d you give him, Harlan?” Jesus chuckled, and Carson shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know what you mean; isn’t he always like this?” he joked, and Jesus laughed out loud. It made the angel look even more gorgeous, Daryl wasn’t surprised to find. His smile was broad and his eyes practically glittered.

Daryl’s head lulled to the side, and he watched as Carson snipped off the last of the stiches in what Daryl vaguely recognized as his own abdomen. He then swiped the area clean with a wet cloth and reached for some gauze.

The bed dipped a little and Daryl watched as Jesus leaned over him, as Carson asked him to hold the dressing against skin. Jesus’s hand was warm enough Daryl could feel it even through the numbing effects of the medicine.

“You feeling okay?” Jesus asked, and Daryl nodded dumbly. Of course he did; he felt as fine as Jesus looked. He told him as such and Jesus blushed, ducking his head so his hair fell in front of his face.

“Your hair looks nice,” Daryl mumbled. He reached blindly up for it, flicking a shimmery strand with his forefinger so that it waved in the air. Jesus’s smile was fond and omnipresent.

“Uh-huh,” Jesus chuckled, looking down his nose as Carson prepared a bandage to tape over the gauze. Jesus pulled his hand carefully away and placed it on an uninjured part of Daryl’s stomach. “Go on. What else do you like about me?”

Daryl shrugged. His head was starting to feel a bit heavy, and he tried to reach for his wounded side, only to have Jesus gently intercept his hand and hold it carefully against the bed while Carson continued to dress his injury. “Dunno, just everything. Look so damn good. When I saw you that first time, you pulled down that bandana off your face and it was just…” Daryl let out a weak wolf-whistle, attempting to mime some gesture with his hand that came across as more a random flick of his wrist.

“Alright,” Carson huffed, shoving his chair away from Daryl’s bedside just as he finished taping his bandage in place, “I’ve had patients throw up on me, and _this_ is grossingme out.”

Carson left the room after cleaning his hands, and Jesus shuffled around a bit so he could pull a thin blanket over Daryl’s naked midsection. He tucked the blanket into place, then pushed a bit of hair behind his ear. He was still preening from the attention, and Daryl liked that. He deserved to feel good about himself, since he made Daryl feel so damn good.

“Get some rest, cowboy,” Jesus said, patting Daryl on the thigh.

“I ain’t tired,” Daryl moaned, and Jesus smiled. He reached for Jesus’s hand again, finding his grip annoyingly flaccid, but Jesus accepted his meek attempt to tangle their fingers together just the same. “Don’t just look good on the outside, y’know. Didn’t mean it like that. You’re good on the inside, too.”

He paused, rolling his lip in thought. “Would a guy like you ever wanna go out with someone like me?”

Jesus’s fond smile fell just a little, breath sighing out of him. He reached for Daryl’s chin, stroking it clean with his thumb. “Ask me again when you’re not high out of your mind.”

Daryl nodded. He didn’t feel high, just a little confused, especially about the way Jesus’s eyes suddenly looked sad. But he agreed, and felt Jesus’s hand slip out of his. He turned his head into the pillow, and made a promise to make Jesus smile again when he awoke.


	7. Chatty Chickadee pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here's your part two. Gosh, I hope y'all aren't disappointed...

Being unable to work when everyone else was working around him really sucked. Carson had put Daryl in a sling that immobilized his arm so that he couldn’t stretch or strain his stitched side, and he hobbled from place to place as slowly as possible, forced to watch as everyone else pulled their weight to support the place he lived. Dante was moving at full speed as usual, and the blacksmith seemed to hail from an era before lunchbreaks or sick-leave, working pretty much non-stop at his forge. Even Maggie was running from place to place, baby slung across her chest like a lemur while she worked in the garden. Jesus of course was doing every odd job imaginable, disappearing and then appearing suddenly like a rare type of wildlife, only seen when conditions were just right. Being mostly immobile made it particularly hard to catch up to him.

Daryl didn’t remember much about his sickbed experience, only that it was probably just as embarrassing as he imagined in his head when he lay back and stared at the ceiling the morning after. He did remember flashes, mostly of Jesus’s pretty hair and laugh, but nothing particularly coherent. He did wake up wanting to threaten Carson to within an inch of his life if he even  _thought_  about giving him morphine again, but instead he just sat there mortified while the doctor tightened the sling, and hoped neither of them would be self-effacing enough to bring it up.

He sat on the picnic table in the centre of the market, legs crossed and apple in his fist, juices dripping down his hand as he ate, feeling something like a little kid watching while the adults worked. He’d put himself close to Jesus’s trailer, knowing he would have to come by eventually to pick something up, at least, and finally he did, rushing up to the door and ducking just inside to retrieve his notebook.

“Hey,” Daryl called, and Jesus paused, smiling over at him. He pushed a strand of hair behind his ear with one gloved finger, cheeks rosy with sun and effort.

“Hey, feeling better?” Jesus asked with a knowing smirk that made Daryl blush.

“Yeah,” Daryl nodded, chewing on his bottom lip. “About yesterday, uh…”

Jesus waved a hand in front of his face, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it; it’s history. I’m just glad you’re getting better.”

“Yeah, but—” Daryl tried, but Jesus was already running off. Daryl pushed himself carefully off of the table with one arm, but Jesus was long gone. It wasn’t history, though, or a joke or even a lie. He was pretty sure most of what he said while…under the influence was directed at Jesus, specifically how cute he was, and Daryl’s pretty sure he asked him out, or at least thought about it—which is closer than he’d gotten in months of having some pretty strong feelings. He almost appreciated the morphine for slicking the way through what would probably be a very awkward conversation that was now mostly over with.

He  _did_  want to date Jesus, at least insofar as he knew what “dating” was, and Jesus’s not-horrified expression while he leaned over Daryl, dressing his wounds, seemed to indicate he was at least a little bit up for it. Or maybe Daryl was remembering things wrong. Times like this, he missed the biting clarity of his brother—Merle would’ve been quick to tell him to get his head on straight,  _and_  inform him in painful detail of  _exactly_ what he said while he was loopy from the morphine. Without that, Daryl basically had to guess.

The day wrapped around 3pm, the farm chores complete and Maggie heading inside for a rest seeming to signal the rest of the settlement to relax, if only before the nightshift began and work started anew. Daryl had never slowed down enough to watch the routine—and, admittedly, whenever he was at Hilltop and had a spare minute to gawk, his attention was on Jesus.

Jesus arrived back in the trailer, carrying food and tearing out of his coat the second he came through the door, barely slowing down even as Daryl called to him.

“Hey, can I talk to you?” Daryl called, and Jesus continued towards the bathroom.

“I’m taking a shower,” he answered, and Daryl strode across the room to block his egress.

Jesus stared up at him in surprise, and Daryl returned the expression, rather surprised himself for his boldness. “Listen, are we gonna talk about yesterday or what?”

Jesus’s brow set in a frown. “What is there to talk about?”

“I think…” Daryl mumbled, his throat feeling suddenly parched, “I think I asked you out.”

Jesus froze, a flush rising on his cheeks. His frown deepened. “No, you asked ‘would a guy like you ever go out with someone like me?’ You didn’t ask  _me_  out.”

Daryl shrugged, “well, I meant to.”

Jesus waited a moment, biting his cheek. His tongue poked out between his lips, like it did when he was anxious.

“You gonna say somethin’?” Daryl asked, cheeks heating up profusely the longer Jesus stared at him.

“No, because this has happened before,” Jesus mumbled, and pushed past Daryl to go into the bathroom. “He says all these nice things, then he’s gone before sunrise. I’m not doing this song and dance again,” he pulled the bathroom door shut and left Daryl alone and more confused and annoyed than before.

Had he somehow made things worse?

 

Hilltop’s communal dinner had started by the time Jesus was out of the shower, but the two of them usually didn’t venture down to Barrington until the second shift, after the kids and the elderly had eaten and the hall was quieter. Daryl was out on the step smoking when he heard the shower door creak open. He watched Jesus stealthily through the window.

He watched as Jesus dried his long hair, twisting and rubbing it back and forth in the towel in a way that Daryl was sure was going to make it knotty but somehow didn’t. When his hair was still damp it was wavy, bouncy, and still as cute as ever. He had pulled on his hemp top and some low-slung khakis and was standing over an open notebook, studying his notes. His eyes flickered up to the open window and Daryl quickly turned his gaze away.

There really was only one thing to do, after debasing himself so thoroughly in his sickbed, and that was to embarrass himself a second time. But this time it would be entirely  _on purpose_.

Jesus came out of the trailer, letting the door rattle noisily shut behind him, pulling his hair out of his open collar and putting it over one shoulder. “Going to dinner?” he asked, and Daryl answered by stepping right in front of him.

“You’re staying here a minute,” he intoned, and Jesus glared at him.

“Don’t even test me, Daryl,” Jesus threatened, cocking one shoulder back, immediately ready for a fight. He wasn’t one to be pushed around, and Daryl knew that.

“No,” he barked, “you’re gonna stand right there, and watch me make a damn fool of myself again.”

Jesus’s eyes widened a little as he took in the words, then his glare disappeared, replaced with a curious smirk. His posture softened, and he placed a hand on his hip

“I m-meant what I said when I was fucked up on the meds, all of it, I’m sure,” Daryl mumbled, cheeks heating up. Jesus looked up at him with an annoyingly steady gaze. Confident little bastard. “Don’t even remember most of it, but it was all real. The meds just…make all that easier to say.”

Jesus raised an eyebrow, still disbelieving. Whatever or whoever it was that made Jesus feel any sort of doubt when someone was complimenting him, Daryl sincerely hoped he could punch it.

“You’re real good-lookin’, but you should know that shit already,” Daryl said, “but you’re also real smart, n’ kind, n’ strong, an’ a real good fighter, too. Maybe even better than me. And I’m sayin’ this completely sober. Wanna know how I can tell?”

Jesus’s brow rose further. “How?”

“’Cause this right here?” Daryl motioned to his bandaged belly, “hurts like a goddamn  _bitch_ ,” he moaned, shifting from foot to foot to alleviate a bit of the sting.

Jesus burst out smiling, then laughing, throwing his head back. His eyes sparkled that way they did, and Daryl’s heart lifted from the throaty sound of his laughter.

“Glad my pain is so amusin’ to ya,” Daryl mumbled, wincing as he shifted his shoulder just a bit. Standing for so long was not doing him well.

“So, you wanna go out to dinner with me?” Daryl asked, disappearing behind his bangs just a little, his face practically on fire. He felt relieved and anxious at the same time, like he could wait in this moment forever, seeing Jesus smile, but he also couldn’t wait to hear his answer.

“Yes, yes, okay,” Jesus answered, nodding, sliding under Daryl’s other arm and wrapping an arm around his hips to help support him. Daryl slouched immediately into him, side crying with relief as he relaxed his posture and let Jesus practically carry him down the steps.

“Y’liked that, huh?” Daryl mumbled.

“What, you admitting I’m stronger than you?” Jesus teased.

Daryl grunted something of a reply. “Well it ain’t never happenin’ again, so,” he grumbled, and Jesus barked out a laugh.

“Right,” Jesus mumbled, “and I could drop you right here.”

As they kept walking towards the big house, Daryl put his nose against Jesus’s temple, nuzzling a kiss into his damp hair. Jesus blushed and squeezed him tighter, and Daryl wondered if he ought to thank Doc Carson the next time he saw him.


	8. Heart Still Beating

They drove through the gates when the sun was just beginning to drop down, shadows drawing long out of the walls and brushing Hilltop with a coppery tint. After stowing the bike in the barn, Daryl had rushed to the shower, tearing out of his clothes, desperate to remove any trace of the place he’d left behind. He had practically insisted on tossing the flannel shirt and starchy jeans after stripping out of them, but Jesus deigned to keep them in secret, as it wasn’t like they had an excess of viable clothing options.

 After scrubbing himself harshly clean, the flurry of his hands easily seen in silhouette through the shower curtain, Daryl gobbled down all the food Jesus gave him and gulped down the water. Jesus gave it to him gradually, aware of the effects of water on parched cells. He stealthily watched the whole process, worried Daryl would fall or hurt himself further: the wounded man wavered between moments of sharp, instinct-driven clarity, and empty, stiff confusion, where he just stood and stared into the middle distance like he couldn’t remember where he was or  _who_  he was.

Jesus stood back in the living room with arms crossed, waiting for Daryl to come out of the bathroom, to watch him step, heavy-footed from the doorway, arms loose at his sides and eyes unfocused. He wore the t-shirt and shorts Jesus had given him, the fabric pulling taut across his broad frame, even slightly diminished as it was. They might have been neglecting him, but not enough to starve him—they wanted him  _for_  something, Jesus surmised silently.

Jesus had one bed and one couch in his trailer, and the rest of his guests had been set up on the floor in bundles. The women took the opposite end of the room where Maggie was already asleep, curled in on her side on the bed, Enid on the couch and Sasha outside on sentry duty. The latter rarely slept, but Daryl desperately needed to, at least tonight. Jesus watched as he arranged his bedclothes, staring blankly at some space in the distance, eyes dark, damp bangs falling over them in a mess of twisted wires. Then, he simply sat, knees bent up to his chest, clutching them loosely.

“Can’t sleep?” Jesus asked from his own bed roll, a collection of quilts gathered from the old house folded carefully on the plywood floor. He was sitting up too, reading by lamplight until he realized the light might be keeping Daryl awake.

“Mm,” Daryl mumbled, eyes flickering back to focus as he shrugged his shoulders, rolling them weakly. What his eyes were seeing, Jesus was almost happy not to know. The horrors he faced at Sanctuary were still fresh, and despite his lack of serious injury—the wound in his shoulder was still red and strained, and a few bruises still marked his face and limbs—the inner pain he faced must’ve been massive.

“How about some music?” Jesus asked, willing to hum a tune or at least put on a CD on a low volume.

Daryl shook his head, narrow eyes going imperceptibly wider. “No,” he said.

Jesus furrowed his brow, Daryl’s outline dark, lit only by a sheen of blueish moonlight. His tongue slid across his lips as he offered, “want to talk?”

“Naw,” Daryl muttered. The fingers of his left hand rubbed distractedly at the skin on his right. “You can, though,” he answered after a moment, and Jesus complied.

“Alright, well,” Jesus thought for a moment. He could talk about what he meant to with Maggie, had he gotten back early enough to find her awake. “The Saviours came by recently. I worry about leaving Gregory alone with him, what he’ll do… But I also worry about facing them without him. The devil you know, right?”

Daryl hummed some sort of agreeing sound, and Jesus continued.

“Maggie has plans for the garden—apparently she grew up on a farm? Whatever she wants to do, I’m all for it,” Jesus went on, looking over to see the way Daryl flinched a little at the woman’s name. He changed the subject to something he knew Daryl would appreciate.

“One of our cows had a calf about two days ago,” Jesus said, “a little late in the year for it, but, well, small miracles. You should go see it sometime.”

Daryl didn’t respond but to nod weakly, gaze indistinct. Tears were in his eyes, dripping silently down his face. He wiped perfunctorily at his cheeks and nose, succeeding only in smearing the moisture around. Jesus’s heart clenched, but he didn’t comment. Whatever effect his talking was having to allow Daryl to unwind, he was content to continue it, conversing quietly in the dark trailer. He talked about anything he could think of, trying to keep the subject light, but knowing that Daryl would not appreciate unpleasant information being hidden from him. It felt good to get some worries off of his chest as well, though eventually he ran out of meaningful information and just started repeating himself, going on about the garden and the weather, and eventually resorting to making lists of crops and odd jobs that needed doing around the settlement.

After a while, Daryl was still sitting upright, and Jesus’s eyelids were drooping. He needed sleep as well; he had a feeling he would need it in the coming days, but he worried about leaving his latest houseguest alone.

“You need anything? Water?” Jesus asked, and Daryl shook his head, eyes dark. His posture had softened slightly, and Jesus counted that as a start. He nodded and put down his head.

Sometime in the night, Jesus awoke to see Daryl fast asleep, flat on his back with his hands up near his shoulders, and he counted that as further success. He wished there was more he could do, but for now, this would have to suffice.

In the morning, Jesus woke to Maggie and Enid gone, their beds neatly made and folded. Maggie admitted her sleeping schedule was like that of an old lady’s since the pregnancy, and Enid followed her like a baby duck. Daryl was still asleep, miraculously, waking only once the sun crept across the room and landed on his face, making him open his eyes and slowly shuffle to his feet.

Jesus lent him a shirt and jeans, glad he’d kept the several-sizes-too-large set, and Daryl put them on in full view, unashamed or safe, whichever it was, Jesus was grateful for his openness. Daryl still hadn’t said a thing about what happened to him at Sanctuary, but he wasn’t jumpy or disjointed like he was the day before. His recovery might be long and it might be silent, private, done all on his own, but at least it was beginning now. His posture was less stiff, his brow softened, though he remained quiet as he buttoned the top and rolled up the sleeves.

They both startled when they heard Maggie calling, and Jesus ducked his head out of the trailer in worry, to see her waiting in anticipation by the slowly opening gate. No weapons were drawn and Jesus hoped for a moment about who had come to visit, but he turned his attention back to Daryl once more.

Daryl’s shirt fit snuggly across his wide shoulders, fabric pulling gently, and the top button was put through the wrong hole by mistake. Jesus stood in front of him, looking up into bright blue eyes for permission before gently fixing the button, popping it into the correct hole and patting the fabric smooth.

“You ready?” he whispered, hoping his look was enough to communicate that he was offering anything Daryl might’ve needed—food, water, a home, or even just some more quiet time to himself. Daryl nodded, eyes slightly puffy from fatigue, Jesus returned the curt gesture. They walked outside to see what awaited them.


	9. Countdown

Two weeks apart and the novelty of a distance relationship has worn off somewhat, all the sneaking about, the delayed gratification of being separated and reuniting when adrenaline is at its peak has gotten stale and Daryl is tired of it. Might be he’s getting too old for the sport of it, the chase, the constantly-high-stakes roulette they play, whatever it is, he just wants to settle in. Cozy up. Sit on a goddamn moth-eaten, sidewalk-fare sofa with enough room for two.

 

It doesn’t help that his family teases the shit out of him for it, no one quite brave enough to break the words, darting creatively around it like they’re so damn clever. Also doesn’t help that Daryl is a goddamn open book, staring open-faced and wide-eyed like a dog offered a walk when Rick mentions they’re due for a trip to Hilltop. One week hence, they’d be heading out for a trading run, Rick says, and Daryl just nods slack-jawed before he manages to get his wits and mutter a forcedly non-committal “yeah, sure, I guess.”

 

“Hilltop, is it?” Michonne butts in, nose crinkling with a smile, “oh, no, Daryl doesn’t like going there. Maybe you should ask someone else, huh?”

 

“Kiss my ass,” Daryl shoots back automatically, to a grinning Michonne. Rick does a pathetic job of hiding a smirk behind his hand.

 

It’s gonna be a long week.

 

***

 

Daryl should be good at this whole waiting thing. He once waited for 18 months for word from his brother, convinced in the latter days of their separation that yeah, this was it, he was never gonna see his remaining family again. One time, out hunting, he stayed the day in a blind, lying flat on his belly for nine straight hours, waiting for a buck he’d tagged earlier to wander by. So, really, six days should be nothing.

 

Tara comes by with a horrendous smile on her face, hand outstretched with a trinket Daryl takes without thinking. It turns out to be a beaded bracelet that says “Jesus loves you”, adorned with maybe a little fish or cross or something Daryl doesn’t see when he’s throwing it to the ground.

 

“No, but, seriously, I get what you’re going through,” Tara commiserates, after she’s done giggling, “when I was 19, I had this girlfriend—well, she wasn’t exactly my girlfriend, but—she left for college in Wisconsin,” she shakes her head to stop herself rambling while Daryl tries in vain to slink away from her. “Point is, it sucks to be apart. I get it.”

 

Daryl grumbles something in return. Somehow, the sympathy is harder to deal with than the teasing.

 

***

 

Five days left and Daryl just keeps forgetting and then remembering at the most inopportune times. In the middle of skinning a rabbit, or tucked under a car’s hood trying to figure out how to make it run on stale gasoline, or half-listening to a conversation between Aaron, Eric and Caroline, he remembers, suddenly, oh, yeah, _I get to see him_. He remembers a brilliant smile that lights up the whole place. His distracted mind provides a flash of green-blue eyes and apple cheeks, long hair that waves golden in the sun. He sees boots that are too big and clunky, the laces tied haphazard around too-baggy pant legs, standing up on tip-toes to reach better...

 

Lying in bed, just before sleep, his mind delivers the reminder again and he smiles up at the darkened ceiling.

 

***

 

Four days left and he twists his foot getting out of the truck, more angry than deterred as he’s forced to hobble from here to there like a mismatched marionette. People rag on him about it. His family’s attempts to rile him up are getting remarkably uncreative.

 

“Might hafta postpone the trip, if you can’t make it,” Rick ponders, rubbing his chin exaggeratedly.

 

“I can make it,” Daryl snaps back, pain wearing his patience thin, “ain’t no senior citizen with a bum leg, y’goddamn sonofa…” He leads off into a series of expletives that trail after him as he marches towards the house, shuffling with more urgency and trying to hide the wince in his shoulders. Rick chuckles out loud, the sound following Daryl home.

 

Half-way through.

 

***

 

Three days left and he’s looking for gifts like a damn teenager on some minor milestone date. He finds an old-fashioned key in a drawer in a derelict home and strings it into a necklace, imagining how it will look resting on a soft chest, nestled in the V of pale linen folds. He finds a notebook with thick pages and no wear and tear and practically punches the air in glee, exhausted by his own sentimentality. A minor find like that shouldn’t fill him with the giddiness it absolutely does. When he spots the matching fountain pen with four extra cartridges, he’s surprised he stays upright.

 

***

 

Two days left and suddenly there’s not enough to do. It’s too early to pack and too late to start any big projects around home. He blows through about eight smokes in one day, leg bobbing and joints creaking with anxious fervour. He settles on cleaning the house, wiping the linoleum here and there with a dirty cloth and sorting his meagre possessions into neat stacks. An empty package of cigs and bruised knees are all he has to show for a day of make-work.

 

Daryl imagines what _he’d_ say, how he’d notice the smooth floors and probably make some dumbass comment, and most of all be absolutely, genuinely _impressed_ with anything Daryl did. How he’d wrap his arms around Daryl’s neck and tell him how amazed and excited he was. How his smile would be broad and reach all the way up to the crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

 

***

 

One day left and Daryl can’t pack fast enough, shooing a distracted Carl aside while he makes the last-minute adjustments to the truck, piling in weapons and linens and dishes side by side, filling the tailgate to the brim.

 

The boy’s giddiness shifts some of the teasing off of Daryl, who is monumentally grateful.

 

“Lookin’ forward to seeing her?” Michonne asks, Judith perched on her hip, the little girl waving silently at a passing Father Gabriel.

 

“Well, yeah,” Carl mumbles, bashful but unashamed in the way his face reddens and his eyes lower to his shoes. “It’s been like, two weeks.”

 

Two weeks is a lifetime for a teen, and Daryl can’t help but wonder what that makes his own inner age, because at this point, he’s sure he’s gone _years_ without seeing that serene, round face, those dimples and fluffy brows. He shuffles back and forth up the driveway, head down as he works. One day. One day left.

 

***

 

Four hours out and Daryl is practically jumping out of his seat. Nothing settles. He doesn’t want to smoke or eat or even drive his bike, which holy shit, means somethin’ _serious_. He’s gotten pretty good at settling his inner vices on his own by various means, both healthy and unhealthy, which shows how on a completely different level _this man_ is in Daryl’s physiology. This cute little asshole with the massive eyes and long, agile fingers, silky hair and a narrow waist has dug in goddamn deeper than he can reach.

 

Daryl’s remembering details he’s desperate to confirm with his own eyes, and hands. And lips, if he’s brave enough.

 

A flush comes across his face Daryl is quick to blame on the sun as he stares out through the windshield. Four more hours.

 

***

 

Daryl backs the truck into its slot behind the gates with practiced ease, glancing over his shoulder to check his clearance _and_ for a certain someone. Carl hops down off of the running boards before Daryl even has time to pump the e-brake, the boy’s steps practically bouncing as he goes deeper inside the settlement. Michonne and Rick climb out of the car parked next to him, and Tara and Wanda, Relena and Jason come out of separate vehicles, each of them replete with supplies. A greeting party has gathered, with at least a dozen Hilltoppers flanking Maggie and little Hershel coming down through the market with smiles on their faces. Daryl’s eyes are open and searching only for one.

 

Dante and Eduardo, Peaches and Sonja split the crowd, waving and shaking hands. Daryl stretches up, stands on his toes, cranes his neck for a better look, not even caring how obvious it makes him look at this point. His heart is pounding, has been since the last neck of the drive when the settlement’s massive walls came into view. An ocean rushes in his ears, his hands jittery, and when finally he spots Jesus in the crowd, he feels something burst inside. Jesus’s smile is genial, broadening when he spots Daryl.

 

Daryl can’t help it. He runs forward, gathering speed until he’s racing through the crowd, throwing his arms out and snatching Jesus up around the waist, pulling him close, lifting him to his chest until his feet come off the ground. Jesus squeezes back, hands wrapped around Daryl’s shoulders, pressing his cheek into Daryl’s neck.

 

They separate and Daryl’s heartrate skyrockets as Jesus tucks his hair behind his ears, flushed in a shade of pink Daryl wants to always, always see.

 

“What was that for?” Jesus chuckles, fluffing his hair where it’s stuck to his neck in the heat.

 

“Dunno,” Daryl shrugs. “Just missed ya.”

 

Jesus grabs Daryl’s hand with his own, giving the fingers a squeeze before letting it hang between them.

 

“I missed you, too. I don’t even know how long it’s been,” Jesus smiles sheepishly, “I lost count of the days.”

 

Daryl shrugs, immune to the sound of the crowd gathered around him, the sparkling summer heat, everything but the look of the face in front of him.

 

“Me, too.”


	10. Handkerchief

Being pinned down in a tiny store room that smelled like stale cardboard and mothballs gave a man time to think, and so Daryl got his full share of thoughtful time after an invasion into a massive outpost went sour, leading him away from the group and upstairs. It was stale and hot on the third floor, and Daryl had only his mind to occupy him while gunfire pinged and echoed outside. He dragged his hand across his sweaty forehead before reaching for something to wipe it with, and pulled from his back pocket a square of cloth.

 

It was probably stupid, even if he pretended it was practical, that he kept Jesus’s handkerchief on him this long. It was with a pile of other garments he’d been lent: specifically two sets of boxers, extra-long-legged jeans and a blue shirt that was baggy on Jesus and so fit Daryl just barely across the shoulders. It’d tided him over until he got back to his own belongings, although he hadn’t yet found a reason compelling enough to take the shirt off, and the handkerchief was fast becoming a manner of comfort item he hadn’t kept since his age reached the double-digits.

 

Daryl unfolded the cloth, holding it up by two corners. It was greying with use, dirty and oily, but it was mostly free of holes, and, if he used his imagination, smelled like Jesus when he held it to his nose. It was pretty nonsensical since it’d been washed thoroughly since the scout wore it on his neck, but with the right—admittedly dehydration-addled—frame of mind, he could smell the Hilltop, its long grass, the mulch of the market, the animals in the barn and the antique doilies of Barrington. Wiping sweat from the bridge of his nose with the cloth, Daryl caught hints of Jesus’s trailer, too, of shampoo and apple pie and dusty linen.

 

Yeah, it was really stupid, but Daryl was half-way to the moon on the cute guy from Hilltop.

 

It was clumsy and vague, but Daryl would be a fool not to notice the bit of something between them, when those big, round eyes landed on his and held, and when nimble hands climbed to his shoulders to smooth the fabric of his borrowed shirt—it was a pittance to form a relationship on, but Daryl had always had that problem.

 

…But no longer. After he got out of this mess, he was gonna _tell him_. Tell him how cute he was and how good, how Daryl had liked him from the start and how his heartbeat didn’t slow down for days after just looking at him. How he’d never met someone who looked at him like that, how his eyes were pretty but he was fierce and strong and stubborn as hell and that was all good because Daryl was seriously into that. He was gonna tell Jesus, and not let what he had pent-up fester like a wound.

 

A bullet bounced off of the over-turned filing cabinet that Daryl had pulled down in front of him and he flinched. Oh, right, the being pinned-down thing.

 

A man hollered for him to come out and Daryl let out a shaky breath. Who was he kidding? He wadded up the bandana and put it against his forehead. He wasn’t getting out of here. There were at least eight Saviors out there and he had exactly zero bullets. He was trapped until the men at the other end of the hall got brave enough to come closer and see if he was dead. Maybe he could grab one of them if he got close enough, and stab him before he got shot to a million pieces.

 

Daryl took a deep breath and let it out slow. Maybe, this was okay. This meant he drew attention away from Rick and Tobin and the various forces assembled outside, as long as he was up here. And maybe it was a good thing that Jesus’s bandana was white.

 

He wouldn’t get to confess anything if he was dead.

 

“I’m comin’ out,” Daryl called, wincing to hear his voice cracking blandly on the admission.

 

“Don’t fuck around!” a Savior called back, and Daryl stuck his arm over the barricade, waving the bandana loosely, fully expecting a bullet through his arm.

 

“I’m out of ammo, I’m comin’ out.”

 

There was a hesitant shuffling and Daryl soon heard the voices much closer to his back as he got up on his knees, hands over head. If they took him alive, at least he had another shot at fighting his way out. If not, well, it’s not like they could kill him any harder.

 

“Turn around,” a man barked, the muzzle of his AR-15 clattering against the cabinet. Daryl complied, turning to be greeted by a slow, disgusting smile on the face of his captor.

 

“Well, look who _this_ is,” the Savior muttered to his compatriots, “you _know_ Negan would love to have _this one_ alive.”

 

Daryl winced internally, though he held his head high. The idea of being put back in that cell made him want to jump out the nearest window, but luckily for him, he didn’t have to.

 

Someone shouting for him to get down was all Daryl needed to throw himself to the dirty carpet, flat on his belly with his hands covering his head. Shots flew down the hall and downed his attackers, their flaccid bodies hitting the ground noisily with yelps and crashes. When the dust cleared, Daryl sat cautiously up to greet Rick, with a train of allies following him close behind.

 

“Thanks,” Daryl grunted when he got to his feet, twisting a pistol out of a fallen Savior’s hand as he stood, then adding, “took you long enough.”

 

Rick looked at him with his eyebrows raised, forehead wrinkled with concern. “Looks like it was a close one,” he remarked, gesturing with his wrist.

 

Daryl checked himself quickly for wounds; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been injured without noticing. He then returned his attention to the handkerchief half-grasped in his fist, spreading it out wide with both hands. One corner had a perfectly round hole in it, torn by percussive force and singed by the heat of a bullet.

 

“Shit,” Daryl piped, examining the hole, sticking his finger through the weave. He thought briefly that it might be a metaphor for something, but shrugged it off, stuffing the cloth into his back pocket and scooping up as many spent weapons as he could heft.

 

“Alright, I’m going back east,” Rick gestured, “you’re heading to Hilltop, to check in with them.”

 

Daryl nodded, bangs messy and long in his face. Damn right he was.


	11. Caged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Negan figures it out before anybody else.

 

As a prisoner, Negan was even more hellish than when he was free, and actually had to hold up a semblance of control or judiciousness for the sake of his being in charge. Now, armed with his brand of sociopathic, finely honed psychological torture, he would dig and dig and _dig_ for hours at his guards, trying to drive them mad from the solitude of his captivity. The only thing that kept Daryl from opening the bars and strangling the villain was Rick’s face, heartbroken, a smoldering shell of the man he once was, his soul permanently cleaved in two, the second half missing. Daryl knew that even though it would silence Negan’s poison tongue, killing him would bring no real peace.

 

Daryl took up position guarding the prisoner’s cell once daily, as did many others who felt the need to lord over him their freedom from his tyranny, the cellar’s surveillance 24-7. He spotted blondish locks between a pair of broad shoulders, the previous guard’s back to him—it was Al, former Savior who had proved himself well enough in the last three months, including saving Jesus’s back more times than was probably necessary in an effort to ingratiate himself with the scout. Jesus’s sympathy was too great for his own good, sometimes, Daryl had long feared, and was vindicated when he found 38 prisoners at Hilltop given amnesty with Jesus’s stamp all over it. They’d argued, then, Daryl almost too angry to see straight, his stomach boiling with heat while Jesus’s wide eyes met his in desperation.

 

Al turned when he heard Daryl’s boots on the steps, giving a friendly tip of his head that Daryl didn’t acknowledge. He simply stepped into place in front of the bars instead, Negan like a zoo animal back in the shadows of his cage, docile but still wild and ready to pounce.

 

“Leavin’ me already?” Negan said softly, and was ignored.

 

“Where’s Jesus?” Al asked, and Daryl grunted. He’d spotted Jesus moments earlier but didn’t need to share the information, as Jesus bounded down the stairs after him, staying halfway up the steps and gesturing at Al with his chin.

 

“Come on, the truck’s leaving,” Jesus puffed.

 

“Ah, just the man I was looking for,” Al interrupted, too-friendly grin on his face.

 

“Look somewhere else,” Jesus snapped back, but without much venom. In fact, a playful little smile that made Daryl’s stomach tighten was lighting up his big eyes.

 

Al feigned surprise, shuffling his rifle up on his shoulder as he made for the stairs. “I told you, I’m just playing with you. You know what they say about ‘all work and no play’, right?”

 

“And I told _you_ , you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Jesus answered, and they turned to leave. They were still chatting as they left, and Daryl watched their feet disappear up the steps, a grimace on his face. It wasn’t hard to recognize flirting, or the fact that Jesus wasn’t shooting down the former Savior as much as he probably should—Daryl, for one, still didn’t trust the bastard, and even as Tara struggled to remind him, with a shaky voice that _she, too,_ used to carry the burden of association and strived every day to make up for it, he couldn’t shake the bad aura he felt.

 

An evil precipitated behind him, and Daryl turned to face it.

 

It was freeing, looking down on the one who had imprisoned and humiliated him again and again, and Daryl could admit, dark as it was, that that was one of the selfish reasons he’d taken up as guard. He glared at Negan, who just met him with a relaxed smile, elbows on his spread knees.

 

“You did _not_ like that, did you?” Negan droned, giving a low whistle, “not a fan of my old friend Al? I can feel the ice coming off of you from here.”

 

Daryl just glared. Emboldened, Negan stood, large eyes catching a sliver of light while the rest of his face remained in shadow. “Can’t say I blame you. One of the only men to ever turn me down, in the end. Besides you, oh, and Dwight, of course,” he tipped his brow to Daryl, whose expression remained impassive.

 

“Wait, now,” Negan said slowly, “was it that fairy tale prince-lookin’ sweetheart instead? What’d they call him? Jesus? He the one makin’ you make that face like someone put your balls in a vice?”

 

Daryl just stared, trying to will his face to remain still, but his anger was mounting quickly. Walking into a room with Negan was like baiting a shark, then standing there to wait and see what happened. The conclusion was inevitable, but one dreaded to watch it unfold anyway. Negan was a bully, through and through, and would push and pull until he found just what best to torment someone with. As much as he tried not to, and through grit teeth, Daryl found himself sympathizing with Dwight—the way Negan picked out the soft parts of you and just twisted and pulled until they were warped beyond repair, Dwight must’ve gotten the full brunt.

 

“Don’t tell me this has something to do with Mr. Fairy Prince’s _natural proclivities_ ,” Negan droned, dragging out each syllable. “I pegged you as more progressive than that, Daryl, don’t let me down, now.”

 

Daryl glared, upper lip twitching. He’d faced this torment before: Negan had called him weak, stupid, compared him to a wild animal, calling him a bigot was the least of it. Not to mention that a few years back Daryl would’ve worn that label happily—it was safer than standing out, making himself a target.

 

“Can’t blame a man for bein’ who he is,” Negan proselytized, looking up the stairs the way Jesus had left. “Hell, _I’m_ starting to get a good feeling from the guy. Gets awful lonely down here.”

 

Daryl chewed his lip. This technique was child’s play; Daryl was almost disappointed. He turned briefly to look up the stairs: they were empty, of course, but squinting, Daryl could see the outline of Jesus coming to relieve him of his shift, or just to visit, bring him a piece of jerky and update him on the rest of the settlement. He’d flip his hair over his shoulder, talk while looking up to the left corner to retrieve a memory, eyes wide and mouth animated as he spoke to a mostly reticent Daryl. Guy was too sweet for his own good. Didn’t need to waste his time on Daryl like he did.

 

“Wait a minute,” Negan said suddenly, and when Daryl turned to him again, he was wearing a disgusting, wet-lipped, sappy-eyed smirk. “It _is_ all about Mr. Fairy Prince, isn’t it?”

 

Daryl flinched, hand tightening on the knife at his thigh. Whatever threat was going to come out of the villain’s poisonous mouth—

 

“Oh, Daryl, you really don’t think you have a _chance,_ do you?”

 

Frozen. It was like all of the blood in his body turned to ice and dripped down. Daryl’s hands stilled at his sides. No, wait, what? His mind was scrambling for responses—denial, horror, disgust, defense, everything jumbling together so he couldn’t get anything out.

 

“That’s fuckin’ why you didn’t like my man Al getting’ all flirty with him. Man, you aren’t a bigot, you’re sweet on that Jesus!”

 

Daryl’s hands trembled and he only saw white before he was lunging forward. His hands hit the bars and he slapped them hard, and while they didn’t so much as rattle, they echoed his rage around the cellar.

 

“Whoa, now, that’s the nail on the head, isn’t it? I can hardly believe it. You are _full_ of surprises, Daryl,” Negan nattered on, and Daryl smacked the bars again, giving a growl. Then he reeled back, pacing. There was no retreating from this. Fuck. _Fuck._ Why?

 

“I don’t blame you, you know. I mean, if that guy wandered up in here in the middle of the night and told me he was horny as hell and needed a dick in his ass, _I_ wouldn’t tell him no. I wouldn’t even have to be drunk!” the beast chuckled, and Daryl wanted to spit in his face.

 

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Daryl let out, even as he betrayed himself to speak. It was as good as letting Negan win; the moment you answered his taunts, it was over.

 

“That’s the thing—”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Gorgeous fucking guy with big, puppy-dog eyes,” Negan brayed on, raising his voice until he was nearly shouting, “he’s got to choose between this young, handsome blond thing chasin’ after his ass—”

 

“Shut up!”

 

“…and _you_ ,” his voice fell deadly quiet, then, and Daryl’s breath hitched.

 

“Sad, old, hillbilly fuck with anger issues,” Negan evaluated, stepping back in his cell, circling like a lion before settling against a wall. He leaned into the cement, shoulders settling flat, the image of relaxed. “No wonder he won’t even look your way. I get it, man. I’ve been crazy about girls that were way out of my league. It’s a wonder what threatening to kill their boyfriends will do to change their minds.”

 

Daryl stared at the floor. He felt chilled from every inch, even as his face ran hot. He hadn’t felt like this since Sanctuary: torn between fighting for his life and just curling up and letting himself be beaten down. Why was it that even on the outside of the bars, he still felt like he was trapped?

 

Negan let out a low whistle, the sound of his voice grating, excavating. “I see how it is. Lemme paint a picture; tell me if I’m getting this right.

 

“Daddy would lose his god-damned mind if he knew his son was fruity. You don’t mention it on penalty of death or worse,” Negan mused, and Daryl gripped the bars. “Piece-of-shit father, deadbeat momma, trailer park full of junkie fucks…”

 

Daryl kept his eyes on the floor. “Stop,” he whispered, so low it was almost silent.

 

“So you lock it up real fuckin’ tight, don’t let it see the light of day,” he continued, and Daryl squeezed the bars with both hands.

 

“Stop talking, or I’ll rip your damn throat out,” Daryl said through grit teeth, and Negan turned to square with him.

 

“You know, I’ve heard that threat so many times from Rick, I’m beginning to think it’s all a show,” now, Negan was the angry one, finally letting what seethed below rise to the surface. “Why don’t you make good on it, for once, huh?”

 

Daryl’s gaze narrowed. He wanted to reach out, wrap a hand around Negan’s throat, the man standing just out of reach and making fists out of reckless fingers.

 

“Why don’t you come in here, take your _balls_ out of the little box Rick’s put them in, and try something,” Negan hissed, voice low and deadly. “That sweet-lookin’ guy is _never_ gonna look your way. You’re a wild fucking animal, pissing on trees and picking fights with the alpha male. All you’re good for is being a fucking hired lackey. So why don’t you come in here and make me?”

 

Daryl needed to think straight, and he wasn’t, as he was considering opening the cell and going inside. He felt drunk, high like he hadn’t been in ages, thoughts elevated and slurring together. That was it, wasn’t it? He had no chance. Negan still had a few inches and a couple stone on him, but Daryl could take him—he could end this. Better than facing what he couldn’t even admit to himself—

 

Daryl’s hands trembled over the key in his pocket—only Michonne and he had copies, Rick trusting their restraint above his own—and his thumb slid into the denim. Negan’s eyes darted hungrily downward, flickering back up with challenge, and Daryl’s heart jumped and he shoved his hand into his jeans before stopping at a sound on the stairs.

 

Daryl whipped around immediately and Negan followed, tempers cooling as Jesus hustled down the stairs, turning towards the storage area in the cellar, sparing the two only a brief glance.

 

“Forgot something,” he huffed by way of explanation, his cheeks pink from fatigue and hair swept by the wind, a stray strand sticking in his mouth. He bent to retrieve a box from the shelf beneath the stairs, then looking up, noticed Daryl’s heaving chest. He was panting hard, and Jesus’s thick brows furrowed.

 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and Daryl felt his blood heat.

 

“Nothin’,” he answered immediately, mind still in denial-mode. He felt like everything was written plain on his face, and his breath hitched as he heard Negan open his mouth behind him.

 

“We were just having a chat,” Negan answered, “don’t you worry your pretty little head.”

 

Jesus gave him a glare that would level buildings but seemed to have little effect on the beast behind the bars, whose expression remained scheming and pleased. Jesus sent a second look at Daryl, one much more gentle and supportive, tipping his head in a nod before rushing back out from where he’d come, vanishing once again.

 

Daryl felt his hand over the key ring and stopped, lost. No. Fuck, no. He didn’t know where his head was, and as he retreated from the bars, he heard Negan give a little click of disappointment with his tongue on his pure-white teeth. The beast let out a sigh, settling back down on the bench where he’d been at the start.

 

“Suit yourself, then, be a fucking pussy about this just like you are about everything else,” Negan huffed, looking ahead. “I’m gonna have fun with this. Thank you, Daryl. You’ve made my stay here about a hundred fucking times more interesting.”

 

Daryl just leaned on the far wall, staring ahead. Leave it to Negan to dig and dig until he hit raw, throbbing nerves and strung out the truth like a walker impaled on a pole. What the hell was he supposed to do now?


	12. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's got a happy ending, I swear.

Jesus really didn’t think it would end this quick.

 

It didn’t even hurt, initially. It was more like a rush, a sudden heat as the bullet opened his gut. They’d been hiding behind a ridge—obviously not well enough—when he’d seen the distant flash of one of a muzzle and jumped in front of Daryl without even thinking. The bullet pierced him so keenly he didn’t even make a sound as he fell, blood whooshing to the hole in his abdomen as he collapsed. Daryl caught him and lowered him utterly carefully to his bent knee.

 

The instinct to staunch the wound wasn’t even there as he lay, trembling, on Daryl’s leg, staring up at messy bangs and worried eyes.

 

“Nononono,” Daryl whispered, his voice a thud in Jesus’s chest. He put his hand over the gaping hole that was practically fountaining blood. “Shit.”

 

Jesus smiled. He couldn’t help it. It was just such a big fucking joke. Falling in love only to die in his arms. Ha, ha. At least they let him get _that_ far. He couldn’t say much, their silence was so imperative around those freaks that walked with the horde, but he couldn’t think of much to say, either. There was so much _to_ say, but none of it sounded right.

 

Daryl looked a wreck, and for that, Jesus was a little bit glad. To know he’d left at least a mark on him. He reached up to Daryl’s cheek, cupping it in a gloved hand.

 

“It’s okay,” Jesus breathed, “I’m okay. Really.”

 

He felt like he was fainting, like he would collapse if he wasn’t already horizontal. Blood fled from his brain, his limbs, made him heavy. It was like going over a steep hill. The bottom dropped out. And then…

 

*

 

Heaven looked pretty okay. Well, actually, it looked like a big, white waiting room filled with people all sitting around staring at their hands. It smelled calm, warm, and Jesus quickly found his place among the clouds with one of the only familiar faces in a sea of anonymous contemplation: Carl Grimes.

 

“Hey,” the boy, who once tricked Jesus, like the naïve old man he was, into thinking he was the naïve little boy he wasn’t, said, and nothing else. He returned to staring at a hole in the floor.

 

Jesus looked around. There were a few other people in the general area in which he sat, before the mist was too thick to see through. Glenn Rhee was there, looking bedraggled but still remarkably handsome, especially with his head _on_. There were a few others Jesus didn’t know, like a woman with glasses and a ponytail, and a red-headed man quietly plucking at his fiddle. They all looked between their feet like ice-fishers, and Jesus finally decided to follow them.

 

Below his feet was Earth, or at least his little corner of it. Hilltop was burying his body and eulogizing him—a sight which really didn’t bother him as much as it should’ve. Maggie was shedding a customary tear, Kal and Dante had their heads down, and Daryl was nowhere to be seen. Jesus found himself thinking he’d ought to be at least a little bit sad—I mean, he’d _better_ be, after what Jesus had pulled.

 

He found Daryl at the edge of the fort, smoking, with his eyes downcast, accepting no one’s comfort. It wasn’t like he was weeping his eyes out, but Jesus supposed that was close enough.

 

The weird bird’s-eye view of the whole thing was a bit hard to understand. It was like watching everything play out from above, but also being there, understanding and connecting with the people down below. It was a bit nauseating after a while, so he looked away and rubbed his eyes.

 

“Glenn, right?” Jesus asked softly, remembering he’d really only met the man once in his life. He’d heard so much about Glenn since that it felt like ages longer.

 

“Yup,” Glenn answered, “and you’re Jesus.”

 

“Not a hard name to remember, but I appreciate it,” Jesus teased, but Glenn just shook his head.

 

“Don’t be impressed; I’ve been watching you for a while now. You’re around Maggie a lot, so, I couldn’t exactly help it.”

 

Jesus nodded. “Ah.”

 

The scene below them broadened, spreading out across time in a sort-of linear way that was too fast for normal time but felt normal up above. He watched as people slowly filed away from his grave, returning to work and sentry duty and getting on with their lives.

 

“So, where is this?” Jesus asked, peering around and gesturing broadly. If actual Heaven was just watching “The Walking Dead” for all eternity, he’d honestly rather be in Hell.

 

“It’s where we wait,” Glenn replied.

 

“For what? The end times?”

 

Glenn’s look was stony. “Well, Maggie’s my soulmate, and frankly, I’m not going anywhere without her.”

 

Jesus felt the intensity of Glenn’s conviction like an actual weight on him. He nodded along. He tapped his fingers on his leg, just then noticing he’d been sent above in his favourite blue shirt and jeans. Nice.

 

“Uh…so, how long do we wait?” He asked.

 

“Dunno. I’m not in a hurry.”

 

Jesus peered down at where Glenn was looking through his own, private window in the clouds. Maggie was cuddling with baby Hershel with a sad smile on her face. She was cooing and singing and even Glenn smiled just a small smile as the hours passed, time stretching and dilating on Earth. Maggie went to bed, awoke, kissed the baby, fed him, slept again. The cycle didn’t seem to bore Glenn in the slightest, as though he could—and hoped to—watch it for years.

 

“Yours was Daryl, right?” Glenn asked, eyes still glued to his mate, as Jesus’s went as wide as saucers.

 

“What? Oh, no, no, no. I don’t think so. …I mean, I liked him, but I don’t think he liked me all that much.” Jesus didn’t think it was _possible_ to like someone as much as he’d liked Daryl when he first saw him. He was willing to walk right into an obvious disaster within seconds of meeting Daryl’s hostile acquaintance.

 

Glenn blinked at him.

 

“So, then, why are you here?”

 

Jesus stared back. Why, indeed?

 

*

 

Time passed quickly in the clouds, but not quickly enough. He watched as his version of The Walking Dead—which, of course, centered around Daryl—dragged on and on. He watched his friends and acquaintances nearly escape walker bites that they could have easily avoided by wearing anything other than t-shirts and jeans. He watched safety advice being politely listened to and then immediately ignored. He saw innocent people die in succession like moths lining up to fly into a candle. At least Glenn, to his side, seemed utterly content to watch for years and years.

 

“One date,” Jesus piped, after a peaceable silence that might’ve lasted several months of Earth time, “we went on one, single, lousy date. He did say I was his first kiss since grade school, so, that was nice.”

 

Glenn hummed. “Not to play any sort of card, or anything, but I _did_ impregnate my wife and then get killed by that guy that’s just wandering around aimlessly down there.”

 

He waved a hand at a forest patch where Negan was pacing around as if waiting for direction.

 

Jesus sighed. Maggie and Daryl, on the other hand, were yet again getting into some stupid shit he wished he could stop, but couldn’t, because he was _fucking dead_. They were carrying—was that gasoline? Oh, honeys…

 

“So,” Glenn asked, as if compelled beyond his will or better judgement, “how was your date?”

 

“Oh, we just went for a walk, and then sat up on the roof watching the stars and drinking whiskey,” Jesus answered, “we kissed when we were plastered enough to be brave, and I remember him putting his hand in my hair, which was…”

 

He paused. About a thousand different emotions came to him, then, none of which he could name. The closest would be it felt soft, melancholy, awkward, reluctant, and beautiful.

 

“Good. It was good.”

 

Glenn hummed again. “Sounds fine. Me and Maggie had sex in a garage, and then after, she told me she never wanted to do it again. I just had a feeling, though.”

 

Jesus nodded. He had a feeling, too, once, back when a scraggly looking guy with gorgeous eyes and arms was pointing a handgun at his face. Ah, those were the times.

 

*

 

“I don’t wanna watch anymore,” Jesus complained, from his spot stretched out, limbs akimbo and hand over his face, lying flat on his back on the clouds.

 

It was getting repetitive. Daryl was getting angry and punching people, and then going and pouting about it. Rick was trying to explain his ridiculous choices and just talking himself around in circles. Michonne was frowning. Ezekiel was making excellent points that no one was really listening to. And Negan was running his dumb mouth off to everyone all the time.

 

“How much longer do I have to watch this?”

 

“Until your soulmate dies,” Glenn explained, chin in hand as he watched Maggie and Gregory squabble again. As if _that_ shtick hadn’t long-since gotten tiring.

 

“Right. My soulmate whom I kissed a grand total of _once_ and then he probably forgot about it.”

 

“You can have platonic soulmates, you know,” Glenn said, “or familial.”

 

Jesus frowned. No, thanks. “It’s just…not that easy. _I_ liked him, but…whatever.”

 

Glenn rolled his eyes as if this whole concept of _not_ immediately going after your crush was tedious.

 

“Look, at least you can take solace in the fact that the one you love is alive and happy,” Glenn mumbled, “or alive and—” he screen-peeked over at Jesus’s looking-glass and saw Daryl stomping around and grunting, “uh, disgruntled.”

 

Jesus sighed. It’s not that he dreamed of making Daryl happy, solving all of his emotional problems and helping him achieve balance forever—but maybe just a tiny bit of that.

 

“I mean,” Glenn sighed, “Abraham was hardly up here like, two weeks. I think he would’ve rather had it the other way around. He had to watch her go through so much shit… But once she got here, well…”

 

“Where’d they go?” Jesus asked, a twinge playing at his heart. He still felt a little bit of guilt about Sasha, though at the same time he remembered Daryl trying, in his gruff way, to reassure him she’d be fine. What a fucking disaster that had been.

 

“I dunno,” Glenn answered, “but they seemed damn happy about it.”

 

*

 

Months and then years passed, and Daryl’s hair turned grey. He tried to hide it under layers and layers of messy fringe, but his roots and beard were getting whiter and whiter. Even Maggie sported a few flecks of silver on her temples, probably from stress.

 

Above, some of the deceased around Jesus went away, even as others replaced them. Couples reunited, mothers found their children, old friends embraced. The redhead was overjoyed to see Aaron—to whom Jesus had spoken once or twice in passing through Alexandria—but not nearly as overjoyed as _Aaron_ was. He practically broke down sobbing in seconds, apologizing and crying while the redhead held him close. They walked off, hand-in-hand into the mist soon after, off to who-knows-where in the reaches of the afterlife.

 

Not long after, the fabled leader, the cause of and solution to everyone’s problems, the fair dictator, and the father to all, Rick Grimes, perished. Glenn and Jesus watched as the people below mourned and cried, and rain fell on Earth because _of course_ it would rain during Rick’s death scene. He fell with a smile, knowing he’d led his people to the Promised Land.

 

Carl had barely said a word since Jesus arrived, just thinking, watching, staring at his hands. He was as still and silent as a hunter up until this day, when now he stood and paced.

 

“Dad!!” he practically shrieked when Rick finally appeared in the mist, and leapt into his arms even as he nearly matched his father in height.

 

Rick sobbed into Carl’s neck, crying, “my boy, my son,” through half-formed apologies and kisses on his cheek, temple and forehead. “My boy. My boy.”

 

They went off, hand-in-hand, Carl overflowing with excitement to meet his mom again, brimming with questions about Judy and her growth. Their voices faded until they disappeared into the cloud like so many others.

 

*

 

With every season that passed, Jesus became more and more bored and more and more anxious. He watched Daryl and Carol hold hands and lock arms and commiserate when the King succumbed to a bite, nearly four years later, in a heroic display worthy of his title. Daryl and Carol were like two halves of a whole, as if they shared a same skin, a same heart. Jesus watched Daryl kiss Carol’s cheek while she cried, and he almost broke out into sobs himself.

 

“I’m wrong,” Jesus shook his head, pacing around his porthole to the surface world, “I was wrong. I’m not his soulmate. How could I be? I hardly even knew him. I’m sure he doesn’t remember me. Why would he?”

 

Glenn, who was still waiting patiently at his left, shrugged his shoulders. He reached out a hand to place on Jesus’s arm to still him, to hold him in confidence.

 

“Listen. You wouldn’t’ve been brought on if you weren’t. You wouldn’t’ve been brought up here just for some fake-out, cheap-thrill bullshit. That’s not right,” Glenn assured him, though Jesus still felt like pulling out his hair.

 

How much longer did he have to wait on uncertainty? Couldn’t someone just tell him his future? Was he not owed that, at least? After waiting this long?

 

*

 

The King joined them a few days later, and greeted Jesus with a smile that lit up the perpetually white room. This time, Jesus explained the whole “waiting on your better half” situation, and Ezekiel took the news with a complete sense of surety to suit his “fake it ’til you make it” mantra.

 

“Who are you waiting for?” he asked, as Jesus worried at the ends of his hair.

 

“I wish I knew for sure,” he answered, and Ezekiel raised a regal eyebrow.

 

“Didn’t you just _know_ right away?”

 

Jesus bit his lip. “I thought I did. It really seemed like it. I was so sure that… _something_ was going to happen.”

 

It had all seemed so clear, back when he was standing in front of a gas station in the middle of nowhere watching the only people he’d seen in weeks make fools of themselves trying to steal a vending machine. It was providence: why else would he have found Rick and Daryl so unexpectedly? And why else would they not have just shot him in the head?

 

Ezekiel chuckled, nodding sagely. “You thought right. Trust me.”

 

*

 

Maggie eventually passed on. It was when little Hershel was six years old, learning how to read and write and hold a shovel instead of a gun. She died heroically—holding the gnashing horde behind the gates of her esteemed city, protecting Hilltop and all its charming character from being overrun. She looked upon her works peacefully as she suffered bite after bite. She barely even complained as fever overtook her later, leaving her conscious for long enough to pass on leadership to those worthy: Eduardo, Enid and others loyal to peace and freedom.

 

Jesus braced himself to lose his only anchor point in this vast, white, confusing place, as Glenn stood to wait for Maggie to find him. She weaved through a crowd of deceased Hilltoppers who stumbled to greet her, offering them a cursory bit of condolence each before sprinting at Glenn and throwing herself into his arms. She wrapped herself around Glenn’s neck as he lifted her from the ground, kissing her hair and ear and crying with joy.

 

Jesus watched them separate. Maggie hugged him, and Jesus was obnoxiously grateful for her touch. It felt like it’d been an eternity without feeling another person’s love, but at the same time, only seconds since he’d last talked to her. She looked as young and lively as the day the two of them sat in Jesus’s trailer and ate dinner like the family he’d never had.

 

“He still thinks about you, honey,” Maggie informed him, and Jesus’s heart tied itself in a knot.

 

“W-what do you mean?” Jesus stumbled, clutching her sleeve, “he…does he…?”

 

“Have faith,” Maggie whispered, and then she was slipping away with her soulmate, their fingers tightly entwined, never to separate again.

 

*

 

Years passed. Daryl outlived them all. Somehow, it seemed right. Somehow, _he_ would be the one to survive the Next World. And the next, and the next, if old age wouldn’t eventually catch up to him. Jesus watched Daryl pass the years—50, 55, 60—as the world turned around him. Settlements evolved into towns and cities. The herds eventually thinned and disappeared, leaving lonely stragglers in fields of golden wheat. Daryl protected those weaker than himself, fought fights he didn’t want to fight, and saved the day over and over. Occasionally, Daryl’s hand found the scabbard on his hip gifted to him by Jesus decades ago. He might’ve felt something when his fingers teased the stitching of the knife’s deer-hide handle, but Jesus was too far away to sense it.

 

Daryl Dixon was the last one standing. Carol died with a smile on her face. She’d had another love, after the King, though it didn’t last—which was only fair, considering she found Ezekiel in the celestial waiting room moments later. Daryl had no loves, great or small. A few people propositioned him, and Daryl turned them all down, igniting hope in Jesus’s chest he didn’t think he deserved to feel.

 

Jesus struggled to watch the last few years as smoking, danger, strain on his heart and body, heartbreak and age eventually broke Daryl down. It took too long.

 

Jesus’s trailer was still standing. It now housed a small family—a mother, father and teenaged daughter who sat together at the dining table and ate and talked and laughed. Daryl went back to Hilltop after leaving the settlement when Maggie passed on. He visited the trailer and the family greeted him at the door.

 

Jesus couldn’t hear clearly as Daryl explained himself; the sounds that came through the porthole were contextual, muddy and too distant. He went to his knees over the porthole, staring down at the surface with his hair falling against the shimmering mirror. Tears welled in his eyes as the family let Daryl come inside and offered him dinner, which he refused, going deeper into the small room instead.

 

Nothing of Jesus remained in the trailer except the four walls. Not his books, his furniture, nor the people he loved. He watched as Daryl toured the small home, leaning heavily on an aching hip as he went into the living room and sat on the floor.

 

In that spot was where Jesus had first brought Daryl back from Sanctuary. After a scalding shower and change of clothes, Daryl had collapsed against the wall of the trailer and drew his knees to his chest, curling up around himself as if he were back in his cell.

 

The trauma had been too much, and when the adrenaline of the escape faded, Daryl was lost. Jesus was too. He’d tried talking to Daryl, comforting him, telling him it was okay, he was okay, really, it would take a long time to get past it all but he was _strong_ , and he would outlive them all, and he would get through it, and this wasn’t going to stop him! But Daryl hadn’t responded at all. He just stared at his hands, eyes glazed and dribbling tears.

 

Jesus had been at a loss and just sat next to Daryl, letting the man shift, lean, and eventually curl up against him, accepting his ginger embrace. They’d held each other all night, Daryl finally falling asleep in a pile of layered duvets and quilts on the floor and with Jesus on the couch just a few inches away. The morning was better, but the night clung at their skin for a long, long time.

 

Surely not _decades_ , though.

 

Daryl, his hair short and silver, sat there in that same spot against the wall where he’d sat years prior. He held the grip of the knife Jesus had given him decades ago while he looked at his hands, the place where the couch had been, and then finally the wall, where Jesus had sat and held him. Daryl’s lip started to wobble and by then Jesus was staring down through the clouds at him with tears streaming down his cheeks.

 

He remembered. Jesus was r _ight_. He was right from the start.

 

As scared as he was for Daryl to die, Jesus was anxious for it, too. He watched a failing heart finally claim Daryl in a hospital bed, where he was quickly put to rest and assured he would not rise again.

 

Jesus sat at the edge of his looking-glass, staring into the empty clouds that surrounded him. Few un-partnered souls sat at his side, a sign that the world he left was becoming safer by the year. But it left him alone. He stood on shaky legs, his hair in tangles all around his face.

 

Time splintered and stretched and suddenly Daryl was there, looking cautiously around the sea of white. He was young and healthy—well, as young as Jesus had known him, so, still old and cranky—and unburdened with life. He put his thumb to his lip as he wandered through the aisles of clouds, inspecting the portholes to Earth.

 

“ _Daryl._ ”

 

He looked up at Jesus’s breathless utterance, eyes going wide and face still. He stared for a moment, and then _ran_ for him.

 

Jesus gasped as Daryl scooped him into a full-body embrace, squeezing him tight around the shoulders while Jesus held desperately to his back, his fingers digging into skeins of muscle. He was still crying, but not from sadness or even relief, but pure, unfettered happiness and the impossible feeling of just _knowing_.

 

“M’sorry,” Daryl mumbled into Jesus’s neck, so quiet it was nearly silent, “m’so sorry. Y’didn’t deserve to…”

 

“It’s okay, it’s so, so okay,” Jesus whispered back, pressing his forehead into Daryl’s shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut against the heated skin. “Really. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t… I didn’t know…”

 

“I did,” Daryl said, as he pulled back enough to look Jesus in the eye. His expression was unwavering.

 

“You did?”

 

“Mmhmm,” Daryl put his hand in Jesus’s hair, gently cupping his skull and capturing all of his awed attention. “I knew. Shoulda realized it _way_ earlier. It was you.”

 

Jesus let out a shuddering breath he didn’t know he was holding as Daryl kissed his temple and burning eyelids. He kissed back, peppering Daryl’s shoulders and clavicle and the place over his heart.

 

“What now?” Daryl asked, stepping back and grasping Jesus’s hand.

 

“I’m not sure. I think we can move on, now, together,” Jesus explained, wiping his cheeks.

 

Daryl nodded. “How long y’been waitin’?”

 

Jesus gave a soft smile. He watched the mist thicken around them, swallowing them like it had his friends before, when they were joined with their soulmates and could leave the waiting room behind. Now, it was finally his turn, and he suddenly couldn’t wait to see what waited beyond, now that he had Daryl, the man he loved, by his side.

 

He beamed up at Daryl.

 

“No time at all.”


End file.
